Many of the people protesting the privatization of the Red Deer College Bookstore Wednesday evening said the move will have negative effects on the campus community.
“For a community college, why do they want to have an American firm come in and run the bookstore?” questioned Mary-Lou Heintz who has worked in the store for the past nine years.
College President Joel Ward confirmed last week that it issued a request for proposal from companies such as Follets, Borders and Barnes & Noble to run the store.
It’s a move that will affect the 12 bookstore staff members and potentially students’ wallets, said Bruce McLeod, union representative for RDC.
Ward said last week the affected staff can apply for other positions available on campus and that they may be hired by the new contractor.
“Whatever successful vendor they bring in, they’re not going to provide the same wages or pension or benefits no matter what people try to say,” said Catherine Lilly, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1445, which represents college staff.
Bookstore staff make between $17 and $25 per hour, but Lilly fears a private company will decrease the hourly rate.
She said wages dropped to just 50 cents above minimum wage when Assiniboine College in Manitoba privatized some of its departments.
Heintz updated her resume but isn’t optimistic that she’ll get another job on campus, saying there’s only a handful of positions open.
As concerned as Heintz is for her own well-being, she’s equally worried that her daughter and other college students will see the price of textbooks spike.
The terms of the college’s request for proposals states that the winning contractor will spend between $1 and $2 million to renovate the store. This includes expanding merchandise lines and selling digital books.
The new contractor must also match or exceed the profit of $400,000 annually that the bookstore earns for the college.
Samantha McMurray, a 19-year-old nursing student, was one of the more than 50 people marching along 32 Street across from RDC. She believes a private company will increase the cost of textbooks to meet these financial stipulations.
She added building a larger digital library will not benefit nursing students who prefer printed materials that they can keep and reference later.
“My biggest fear is that our learning is going to be impacted if there are ebooks and we’re not going to have the references we need if textbooks aren’t available to buy. Or if costs go up and we can’t afford them,” said McMurray, who spent $2,000 on required books this year.
Andrew McCutcheon, a 20-year-old education student, spent roughly $1,000 on textbooks. This included a $200 French textbook in digital form that he only had access to for eight months. He bought the electronic version because the print copy was sold out.
“That’s a book that I could have used for the rest of my life,” he said.
The bookstore has offered one per cent of its books in digital form for the past two years.
“Ebooks is not the issue. That’s not what the students want,” said Allison Denbury, a textbook buyer who has worked at the college bookstore for 14 years.
“The students want the service that we give.”
Those who wielded signs saying “Sell books not jobs,” waved union flags and tooted horns hoped the rally would convince Ward to change his mind about the pending sale.
Staff will no longer have their positions at the bookstore come July 14.
ptrotter@www.reddeeradvocate.com